It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

Monday, here you are again, and here I am reading a couple of books that I think are pretty good!

I’ve been reading The Churchills by Mary S. Lovell for a few days now, as it’s a nice big chunky biography and takes a bit of memory to figure out who is who each time I pick it up. I really enjoyed Lovell’s biography of Bess of Hardwick, and so the fact that she’d written this family biography plus the subject matter interested me a lot. I’ve been to Blenheim Palace, I’m fascinated by Consuelo Vanderbilt, who married one of the dukes of Marlborough (the Spencer Churchill family) at her mother’s behest and against her own will, and I’m probably one of the few people living in the UK that knows very little about Winston Churchill aside from the big history-making stuff. So! The scene is set for a good read and I’ve rescued it from a bit of isolation on my shelf – it’s been sitting there for over a year.

This is not really the sort of non-fiction I’d consider serious history, but rather very gossipy and very much about who was sleeping with who and when. Most of the book centers around the part of the family immediately around Winston Churchill, with a brief description of the family and a few chapters about his parents. I’m pleased with it so far; I especially like, as I always do with history, when Lovell talks about the historiography of the family and compares her own thoughts with those who have come before.

I only started my second read today but I’m already almost a third of the way through (the joys of commuting to work). This is Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers. You may not know this, as I never posted about it, but I read Strong Poison a couple of months ago. This book, and the part of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries including Harriet Vane, came highly recommended by everyone who’d read it, and in fact Ana pressed it in my hand in London one day, so there was no chance of me saying no. While I didn’t fall in love with it, I was intrigued enough to stick the remaining three books on my wishlist. Then, yesterday, in something of a coincidence, Amy’s post reminded me that actually I quite wanted to read the rest of these books, and they dropped a couple of pounds on the Kindle. So I bought them and started reading on the train this morning.

To my surprise, I am loving this one, to the degree that I’m actually going to go cheat on The Churchills (my home book) so I can read it more. I love the banter between Harriet and Peter in particular; it’s incredibly delightful even in the middle of a murder / suicide mystery, and I really just want more time to read. I could have stayed on the train for much longer this evening. As I’m home, though, I’m going to go indulge myself while it lasts.

Sounds like you’ve got interesting books on the go. This week I finished off The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King, and now I’m completely absorbed in The Doll a short story collection by Daphne du Maurier.jessicabookworm´s last post …The Classics Club: List Revision

I love the idea of historiography in the book, I only recently learned about the concept but it’s fascinating, and with the books on war I read being focused on the first or Germany itself I’ve not learned much about Churchill either. It sounds a good place to start. I’m reading The Truth of All Things, which I should have finished a while ago but found hard to get into.Charlie´s last post …On Lending Books To Others